


devotee

by ilgaksu



Series: myth au [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Akaashi is a dryad, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Bokuto is Pan, I should be working, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-04 01:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5314427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Go ahead. Try and tell him to stop. See if he listens. See if he knows how.</p>
            </blockquote>





	devotee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ryonello](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ryonello).



 

Go ahead. Try and tell him to stop. See if he listens. See if he knows how.

*

“You never,” Bokuto says, “Give me what I want.” The drip of his voice would be honey-lazy if it wasn’t for the brilliantine of his eyes. If you didn’t know, you’d tell his immortality by his eyes, Akaashi thinks, by the slow wavering blink of them and the way he can never imagine them sealing shut with the final sleep. The gold coins of his eyes are proof he’ll never have to pay his passage; the Styx is safe from one spoilt godling, at least.

Bokuto keeps his eyes locked with Akaashi’s, animal-stubborn. There’s a line of wine slicking vein-dark down one of his wrists; Bokuto lifts it to his mouth and licks it clean without looking away. Around them, the shadows shiver slick and gold with festival light and there is always more ambrosia and Bokuto will always be this young, always be this old, always be this beautiful. Bokuto licks his own wrist, slow as a feast, and Akaashi knows he isn’t burning, but it scares him all the same. Dryads are scared of forest fires, and who can blame them? You can’t make a home from ashes.  

“You’re already given what you want too much,” Akaashi says, and Bokuto’s laughter is like noonday light, the scorch of it.

Akaashi turns away. You don’t look directly at the sun.

*

It’s not that Bokuto wouldn’t mean it if they fucked. It’s that he would.

(You never give me what I want. Akaashi, Keiji, you never give me what I want.)

*

They are all at the mercy of the gods; Akaashi Keiji in more ways than one. He couldn’t leave Bokuto; dryads leave their cults, it’s been done, it will continue to be done, but it’s frowned upon. He couldn’t leave Bokuto; on the days where it’s as though black oil blooms beneath Bokuto’s skin, Akaashi sits with Bokuto’s head in his lap, stroking his head and ignoring the fat-hot tears against his thigh, Bokuto struck mute by the crushing weight of sudden stark misery. On those days, Akaashi touches a god with all the intimacy he’ll ever allow himself, keeps his hands gentle as he never keeps his voice, and he wonders _who did this before me? who would do this after me? what would you do if I was gone? would I be easy to replace?_

He knows Olympia laugh about it. Gods and dryads, it’s an old story, and the dryad always winds up dead. It’s much harder to kill a god, after all. Bokuto and his dryad; Bokuto’s dryad; although Akaashi isn’t Bokuto’s, even as much as he is. At the height of festivals, Bokuto has kissed Akaashi, rough and golden with the hysteria of it. In the nights, when Akaashi stands guard over Bokuto’s prone form, asleep in the grass, he never lets his guard down but he does pause to listen to Bokuto’s breathing. He leaves at dawn before the temptation to lie down there, next to Bokuto, with Bokuto, goes past the edge of pain and into agony-longing. One of them has to be sensible.

(You don’t look directly at the sun; it’s an old story, and the dryad always winds up dead.)

Akaashi couldn’t leave Bokuto; he wouldn’t know how.

*

Bokuto always sleeps beneath Akaashi’s tree. His face is dappled with moonlight through the leaves; it feels like ownership. Akaashi tries not to think too much about the implications of that. He can’t help it, though. He can’t help it, not when Bokuto blinks slow and liquid back from sleep to smile at Akaashi.

“Always guarding me,” Bokuto murmurs. He is less god in restfulness, if that is ever a thing Bokuto can be; god of the wild, god of the nymphs and dryads, god of all the things Akaashi has ever loved and will ever love and can ever love. Akaashi is only a dryad. He does not have infinite space in his chest. When Bokuto stretches he arches his back and keeps his eyes on Akaashi and Akaashi tries to look away quick but looks away slow.  

“Go back to sleep,” Akaashi says, and Bokuto laughs but there’s no sting. He’s not like Olympia. _Look, there goes Bokuto’s dryad._

“Do you ever think,” Bokuto says, voice soft and dark like mulch, just as insidious and easy to sink into, “Of lying with me?”

Akaashi keeps his eyes trained on the edge of the clearing, on the faint lights between the trees, where the rest of Bokuto’s companions take their rest. The need of it guts him.

“All the time and too much,” Akaashi says, and he lets his voice go naked with it, doesn’t miss the small intake of breath from Bokuto. “Please go back to sleep now.”

Silence. Akaashi can hear himself swallow. Wonders if Bokuto can, too.

“Please go back to sleep,” Akaashi says desperately. And slowly, Bokuto does.

*

“Kill this tree,” Akaashi had told Bokuto once, resting his hand against the bark as though against a human heart, “and you kill me too.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Bokuto had said, eyes panicked, “Why would you tell me that?”

“Because now,” Akaashi says, “you know why we can’t.” He smiles, and the smile is the coldest thing he’s ever made. “I’d never be able to kill a god,” he tells Bokuto. There are no tears. Gods don’t cry for dryads.  

But that night, Bokuto started sleeping beneath Akaashi’s tree. That night, Akaashi started standing guard. That night, they stopped talking about it. Until -

*

The next holy day, Bokuto runs wild. It shouldn’t be new. Bokuto always runs wild. It’s what he does, it’s what he was born for, it’s not so much his meat and drink as the blood in him. It shouldn’t be new, only Bokuto dances so long and hard none of them can keep up with him, and he keeps calling for more. He keeps calling for more. He keeps calling for -

“He’s asking for you,” one of the lake nymphs says, finding Akaashi by a stream, drinking from the cup of his hands to forget the cup of Bokuto’s mouth. Bokuto kisses Akaashi on festivals when he forgets himself, and this time Bokuto had kissed Akaashi with a mouthful of wine, and Akaashi had opened his mouth and drank. Akaashi needs to rinse the taste out now so he can forget. “Must be nice to be loved by a god.”

“You have no idea,” Akaashi says wearily, and gets to his feet.

“You could ask him for anything you wanted,” the nymph presses, the trickle of their voice in Akaashi’s ears. “We all know it. You could ask for the sun and he’d strike Hinata down.”

“Careful Hinata doesn’t strike you down for saying that.”

The catch of the nymph’s wrist around Akaashi’s wrist surprises him; the press of their lips against his, the slick of their tongue; for a second Akaashi thinks _it's one way to get the taste of him gone_. Akaashi hears the snap of branches and pushes the nymph away, wipes his mouth as the nymph goes clear-pale and melts into the lake with a shiver.

Bokuto is staring, at Akaashi and the space where the nymph had been corporeal, looking stricken. And Akaashi thinks _this is why._ Akaashi thinks _I’m worth more than a cautionary tale._ Akaashi thinks _one day, someone will cut my tree and I will bleed for it; one day, it could be you with the knife._ Dryads who love gods end up as collateral. That’s why Olympia laugh.

“I’ll go,” Bokuto says, but makes no move to. Akaashi thinks _this is best._ Akaashi thinks _don’t look at me like that._ Akaashi thinks _I can’t bear it. I’m worth more than a cautionary tale and I will not be your collateral, you don’t look directly into the sun and_ I can’t bear this.

Akaashi takes the cup from Bokuto’s unresisting fingers and lifts it to his mouth. He rinses his mouth with the wine and spits it into the grass and Bokuto watches him.

“I’ll go,” Bokuto says again, and Akaashi catches his arm. Bokuto stills, stunned.

“Not at all,” Akaashi says, “I needed to wash my mouth out,” and moves to kiss him first.  

*

“You’re always talking,” Akaashi says, slinging his other leg over and settling into Bokuto’s lap. Bokuto is burning up, his eyes shaky-gold. Dryads are scared of forest fires, but Akaashi saw the smoke and turned back to breathe it in. Akaashi doesn’t run.

“Shut up and start listening,” Akaashi says instead.  

Beneath him, Bokuto is trembling. He bites his lip, eyes half-lidded, eclipse eyes. He doesn’t make a sound. Akaashi sucks bruises into him, pushes him into the earth, the lights in the distance and the smell of grass in the heat. And Bokuto still doesn’t make a sound, and Bokuto keeps his eyes open. When Akaashi murmurs _you’re being quiet_ , cautious and amused, against Bokuto’s shoulder, Bokuto gasps and says _you asked me, you asked me, Keiji, you asked me_.

(You could ask him for anything you wanted. We all know it. You could ask him for the sun and he’d strike Hinata down.)

But one day, even the sun will burn out. And Akaashi bites Bokuto’s shoulder, and Bokuto shudders, and Akaashi whispers: _I did, didn’t I?_


End file.
